Glossary Tombs and burial
Pit grave
A simple grave dug as a hole in the ground, usually for one body; the normal form of burial in Neolithic and Chalcolithic Cyprus.
Before chamber tombs were introduced, most Cypriots were buried in pits dug among or beside the houses of the settlement. The body was usually laid on its side with the legs drawn up, and goods were few or none. At some Chalcolithic sites the pits were plain holes, while others had their rims lined with pisé and pebbles, a difference that does not follow sex or wealth. Pit graves carried on alongside the first chamber tombs at the end of the Chalcolithic, and simple pits remained in use for single burials in later periods. See Neolithic and Chalcolithic burial.
Full entry: Neolithic and Chalcolithic Burial in Cyprus
Related terms
- Contracted burial
A burial in which the body was laid with the knees drawn up towards the chest, usually lying on its side.
- Intramural and extramural
Inside (intramural) or outside (extramural) a settlement or its walls; used above all of where the dead were buried.
- Inhumation
Burial of an unburnt body in the ground or in a tomb, as opposed to cremation, in which the body is burnt.